Miles chaser

Citibank Rewards card

By far the best rewards card Citibank has to offer. At 4 miles /S$ spend on online retail transaction, it holds its own against other credit cards in the market. On Amazon purchases, it goes up to 8 miles/S$ spend; this is the best in the market. The best UOB credit card earns 6 miles /S$ spend for transactions through their travel agent, while DBS World Woman Master credit card also earns 4 miles/S$ for online spend.

Cool thing is that there are two versions, Visa and Mastercard, and each card has its own rewards cap. So getting both will double the cap.

Frankly, this is an average card. At 2 miles /S$ spend for foreign currency and 1.2 miles /S$ spend (1.3 miles for AMEX version) for local currency, we can do better with the UOB PRVI cards (2.4 miles/S$ and 1.4 miles/ S$ respectively). That said, a (very very) key difference is its ongoing promotion. If you’re a new Citibank credit card user, and you’re going to spend S$10,000 within the first three months of getting the card, go for it. You’ll be handsomely rewarded with at least 42k miles.

Another average earn rate similar to the Citibank Premier Miles AMEX (2 miles /S$ spend for foreign currency and 1.3 miles /S$ spend for local currency).

Key differences lie in its Prestige Card privileges such as limousine transfers / concierge service and the option to receive Citi$ (miles) after payment of annual fee. Is this exchange of annual fee for Citi$ value-for-money? That depends on how you value it. Other cards that offer a better deal in fee-for-miles exchange are ANZ and DBS Altitude cards.

Cashback chasers

Cash Back Card

As the name suggest, this card gives you cashback on spend. Used to be known as ‘dividend card’, the requirements have been tightened, and it now takes a lot more monthly spend (S$888 to be precise) to qualify for the top tier of cashback. The difference between the top tier and base rebate is 7.5%, a huge difference if you ask us.

That said, if you’re consolidating all your family spend on the card, it works pretty fine for petrol (Esso and Shell) and many supermarket chains.

Pros: i) High cashback amount, capped at $75 for the categories of petrol, groceries and dining.
Cons: i) High spend required

Although this credit card is branded with SMRT, its rebates on EZ-reload auto top up is only average at maximum 2%. The categories of groceries and entertainment (coffee/movies/fast food) are better at a maximum of 5%. The spend criteria is a lot more lax than the cash back card for groceries spend.